News Media: Now It Can Be Told

Charlotte Hays

We were told repeatedly by the Obama campaign and the overlapping media that the economy was improving in the final days of the presidential campaign.

What a difference not needing to hype the president makes. We’d had nothing but terrible economic news since the polls closed. I share my colleague’s dismay over the demise of the iconic Hostess cupcake a Proustian madeleine for me, but that is just the icing on the rotten cake.

In a post headlined, “Oh, We Forgot to Tell You…” Victor Davis Hanson looks at some of the very bad news we’ve received now that the president's job is assured:

Coincidentally, right after the election we heard that Iran had attacked a U.S. drone in international waters.

Coincidentally, we just learned that new food-stamp numbers were “delayed” and that millions more became new recipients in the months before the election.

Coincidentally, we now gather that the federal relief effort following Hurricane Sandy was not so smooth, even as New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Barack Obama high-fived it. Instead, in Katrina-like fashion, tens of thousands are still without power or shelter two weeks after the storm.

Coincidentally, we now learn that Obama’s plan of letting tax rates increase for the “fat cat” 2 percent who make over $250,000 a year would not even add enough new revenue to cover 10 percent of the annual deficit. How he would get the other 90 percent in cuts, we are never told.

Coincidentally, we now learn that the vaunted DREAM Act would at most cover only about 10 percent to 20 percent of illegal immigrants. As part of the bargain, does Obama have a post-election Un-DREAM Act to deport the other 80 percent who do not qualify since either they just recently arrived in America, are not working, are not in school or the military, are on public assistance, or have a criminal record?

Thomas Jefferson once said that "our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." The press now routinely quashes news that doesn’t fit in with their ideology and attempts to destroy those who don’t share their politics.

If we had had a press that valued its own freedom and integrity, this awful news wouldn’t be coming out just now. The consequences of having a corrupt media combined with a cat-got-your-tongue GOP that is afraid to make its points spells disaster, unless we find a new way to talk about our policies.

Since only the GOP will see us as on the wrong course, it’s up to them to speak the truth. They seem unable to speak of their policies in an appealing way--and to get around the gate keepers in the media. Mona Charen writes from aboard the National Review post-election cruise:

The deeper irony however, was touched on by National Review’s Jay Nordlinger — namely, that the redistributionist policies so beloved of Democrats actually make the middle class poorer. The rich don’t need better jobs, schools that actually teach, and Social Security and Medicare that do not go bankrupt. The Kennedys of this world don’t send their kids to the neighborhood school or look for work at the oil and gas company in town. The reforms so essential to the well-being of the broad middle class in America were championed by Romney and Ryan. Obama stood firmly against reform and for a status quo that already has diminished the welfare of the poor and middle class and threatens to further immiserate the entire nation.

“Was Romney a throwback to another era?” one panelist asked. Too reticent and dignified for the emotionally exhibitionistic world we inhabit? It’s possible, and no political party that fails to change with the times will survive. But Romney’s reluctance to offer arguments instead of personal credentials (“I’m a business guy”) was probably more important.

Conservatives and Republicans object to tax increases not because they favor the rich, but because they believe strongly that the government already spends way too much. The election has settled the issue, for now, in Obama’s favor. Republicans who still hold national power in the House might want to consider one idea that will help their image and expose Obama’s deception in a single blow — agree to raise taxes only on the truly rich, those earning more than $5 million annually. That’s a tax that will be shouldered almost entirely by Obama donors and supporters — those insulated from the real economy.

Unfortunately, though they tend to be quite affluent, most reporters and editors will not be hit by such a tax.

Think I’ll drown my sorrow in a Hostess cupcake. Before it is too late.

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Independent Women’s Forum’s mission is to improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty. Sister organization of Independent Women’s Voice.